"Now the last, and I will be able to sacrifice this bread for you. `Clouds and double darkness veil the skies.' In one respect that is very plain. Double darkness must surely refer to the extinguishing of the Long Sun by night. Night is coming-" He glanced toward the window. "Is already here I ought to say. It may be several days before we see the day again."

"Maybe I'll go back to sleep when you leave… Maybe I'll go back to sleep when you leave, Patera."

"That might be wise." His forefinger traced circles on his right cheek. "Clouds? I can't make much of that. It may mean perfectly ordinary clouds, such as we see every day. It may also refer to the god's veiling the minds of those he intends to destroy. I cannot be sure. `Skies' presents the greatest puzzle of them all, at least to me. There have been two skies involved in the entire passage, as we have seen-the sky of Blue, and ours in this whorl. The plural must, I would think, refer to those two. The whirlwinds, clouds, and double darkness therefore refer not merely to this whorl, the Long Sun Whorl, but to Blue as well. It is dark on Blue each night, but how it can be doubly dark there I cannot imagine. An augur might give us a more exact interpretation, of course; it's a shame that there's no real augur present."

He uncorked the wine bottle. "Don't you have a glass for this, Olivine? And a knife to cut the bread?"

"I could get them… I could get them, but…" There was reluctance in the soft, thick voice that went beyond the usual reluctance to speak at all.

"But what? Please tell me."

"Father doesn't like me taking the… Father doesn't like me taking the things."

"I see. And you're not sure that Calde Bison even knows you're up here?"

She shook her head.

"Doubtless your father's right. It's better not to risk your being put out of the palace, though it would seem to me that you might make Calde Bison or General Mint a useful servant. Your father instructed you to sleep while he was away?"

She nodded again.

"I met my own father today. It was the first time I'd seen him in many years. I don't believe I told you."

"No, Patera…"

He smiled and shook his head. "I was walking up Sun Street, looking for the place where our shop used to be; and he asked whether he could help me. He had seen, I suppose, that I was trying to locate a particular spot."

The shiprock walls, washed almost clean by many rains, had been crumbling into the rectangular holes that had been their cellars; cracked shiprock steps returned to the parent sand and gravel before the empty doorways. He looked above each that he passed for the painted sign he recalled so well: SMOOTHBONE STATIONER. It had proved less durable than the soot.

"Maybe I can help you." The passerby was short and stocky; his baldness exaggerated his high forehead.

"If you knew this area before it burned."

The bald man nodded and pointed. "My place was right over there for years."

"Before the fire, there was a little shop that sold, oh, quills and paper, mostly. Ink, notebooks, and so on. Do you know where that was?"

The bald man pointed as before. "That was mine."

Together, they walked to the spot. "I've been away a long time." The words had almost stuck in his throat.

"The quarter burned," the bald man said.

"I wasn't here then."

"Neither was I, I was way up north fighting Trivigauntis. Did you ever come into my shop in the old days?"

"Yes. Yes, I did."

The bald man moved half a step to his left, seeking a better angle. "Parietal? Was that your name?"

"No." Better, surely better, not to say too much too soon. "You lived here? In the Sun Street Quarter?"

"That's right. I had a wife here and children, four boys and three girls. Our house over on Silver burned too, but they got away. Went outside to one of the round whorls."

"You had a son named Horn, didn't you?" It was harder than ever to speak.

"That's right, my oldest. You knew him?"

"Not as well as I should have."

"He was good boy, a hard worker and brave as Pas's bull." The bald man held out his hand. "If you were a friend of his back then, I'm pleased to meet you. Smoothbone's my name."

They clasped hands. "I am your son Horn, father."

Smoothbone stared and blinked. "No, you're not!"

"My appearance has changed. I know that."

Smoothbone shook his head and took a step backward.

"There was a loose floorboard, right over there. After we closed, you'd pull it up and put our cashbox under it; and put a box of ledgers on top of it."

Smoothbone's mouth had fallen open.

"You didn't want me to know about it, and you were angry when you found out I had spied on you; but you continued to put it there. I know now you did it to show you trusted me, but at the time-" Tears and embraces prevented him from saying more.

When they separated, Smoothbone said, "You're really Horn? You're my son Horn, come back?"

He nodded, and they went down the street to a tavern in a tent, where the bar consisted of a plank laid across two barrels, and there were three tables, three chairs (one broken) and an assortment of stools and kegs. "You've changed out of all reckoning," Smoothbone said.

"I know. So have you. You were a big man when we went away." Memories came flooding back. "You said I was brave, but I was afraid of you. So was Mother. We all were."

The barman asked, "Wine or beer?" and looked surprised when Smoothbone asked for wine.

"How is she, Horn?"

"Mother? She was well the last time I saw her, but that was some time ago. Oxlip's taking care of her."

"I've married again. I ought to tell you."

For a moment, there was nothing to say.

"I guess you wondered why I didn't come."

He shook his head. "We thought you'd been killed."

"Not me, Horn."

"That's good." He was sick with embarrassment.

"You did all right out there?"

"Well enough. It was difficult, but then it was difficult here too. Difficult for you, I mean; and it would have been difficult for Nettle and me, if we had stayed here. It was no worse there, just different. Our donkey died." He laughed. "I don't know why I said that, but it did. That was the bottom-the worst time we had. After that things got better, but only slowly. Years of hard work. Nothing to eat, sometimes."

Smoothbone nodded. "I know how that is."

"People say there's always fish. I mean on Lizard they say that. We live on Lizard now."

"I never heard of it. Just Blue or Green is what they say."

"It's on Blue-a little island. We have a house there, a house we built ourselves, and a paper mill." Suddenly he smiled. "You have three grandsons. No, more, but the others aren't mine. Mine are Sinew, Hoof, and Hide."

Smoothbone smiled too. "This is Nettle? Nettle's sprats?"

"That's right. We married. We'd always planned to, and old Patera Remora married us there a few days after the lander put down. Do you remember Patera Remora, Father?"

"Remora?" Smoothbone tugged an earlobe reflectively. "It was Pike. Patera Pike. Then Silk, that was calde after."

He nodded.

"We went to sacrifice with him, I suppose it must have been three or four times."

"More than that."

"You and your mother, maybe." Smoothbone drained his glass. "More wine, son?"

"No, thank you." His glass was half full.

"I'll have another." Smoothbone signaled the barman. "You know, I ought to have written all that down. I wish I had."

"On Blue, I wrote a history of Silk. Nettle and I did, I ought to say."

"Did you now!"

"Yes, Father. Nearly a thousand pages."

"I'd like to see it. My eyes aren't what they were when I was shooting Trivigauntis, but I can still read with a lens. Were you wanting to get paper and pens at our old shop, son?"

He shook his head. "I simply wanted to see it. To stand there for a little while and remember." He paused, considering. "Now that I know just where it was, I'm going to go back there and do it. It may be the only chance I'll ever have."